Pipe-cleaning apparatus



(No Model.) V v 2 Sheets-Sheet 1.

WMTHOMAS.

PIPE CLEANING APPARATUS.

I INVENTOR 77 222210072 Q'fiwmcw,

Patented Aug. 4, 1.885.

By his attorney WTNESSES Q C- W n Fn'ens. Plwmlithugrzphwr. Washington. 11 u (No Model.) 2 Sheets-$heet 2,

W. THOMAS.

PIPE CLEANING APPARATUS.

Patented Aug. 4, 1885.

I INVENTOR WzZZz'am 1720mm,

By his Attorney WITN ESSES N FUCHS. PheloLhkognphcr. wabingtun. 0,0.

UNTTED STATES PATENT @rrics.

XVILLTAM THOMAS, OF JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY.

PIPE-CLEANING APPARATUS.

SPECIPICATIQN forming part of Letters Patent No. 323,52, dated August 4, 1885.

I Application filed November 14, 1884. (No model.)

T 0 all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that 1, WILLIAM THOMAS, of Jersey Gity,New Jersey,a eitizpn of the United States, residing temporarily at Cleveland, in the State of Ohio, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Pipe-Cleaning Apparatus, of which the following is aspecifieation.

This invention relates to means for cleaning out the pipes of beer apparatus and other like liquid conductors which become fouled or coated internally with deposits from the liquid ordinarily contained therein. Inbeer apparatus, for example, the beer-pipes and their faucets and connections become coated internally with an offensive slime, and provision has commonly been made for connectingthem with the main water-pipe, so that the water can be caused to flow through them at times to wash out or rinse them; but cold water cannot be relied on to thoroughly cleanse the larger portions of the liquid -passages and the corners and contracted crevices at the fancets and connections. The said slimy coating adheres tenaciously, and the efficient action of the cold water appears to be confined to those smooth and contracted portions of the liquid-passages through which it is forced.

The primary object of this invention is to provide for forcing through such liquid-eonducting pipes a cleansing-fluid suited to and adapted to attack the impure deposit from the liquid, whatever it may be, followed by pure water to rinse out the liquid-passages, whereby the latter may be quickly and thoroughly cleaned.

Another object of the invention is to provide for so cleaning such pipes by apparatus adapted to coact with an ordinary water-faucet and the ordinary liquiddrawing faucet without special provision in the beer apparatus or the like for applying the new cleaning apparatus thereto.

A last object is to provide against wasting chemically-prepared cleansing-fluid or contaminating the pure-water chamber of the apparatus therewith. V

This invention consists in a pipe-cleaner adapted to operate as aforesaid, and in certain novel combinations of parts therein, hereinafter described and claimed.

Two sheets of drawings accompany this specification as part thereof.

Figure 1 of these drawingsis a sectional elevation of a pipe-cleaner in operation applied to beer apparatus, illustrating the presentin veution in all its parts. Fig. 2 isalarge scale axial section of one of its terminal couplings, and Fig. 3 is an end view of thelatter. Figs. 4, 5, and 6 representvertical sections of modified forms of the main part of the apparatus; and Fig. 7, a cross-section on the line 7 7, Fig. 6.

Like letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the several figures.

The main part of my pipe-cleaning apparatus in either of its forms is an air-tight partitioned vessel, 0 or G or G" or C, adapted to withstand the internal pressure of water-service pipes, and having a chamber, 10, for water and air, and a chamber, f, for cleansing-fluid, with an inlet-neck, t, communicating with the former, a connection, w, between the tops of the two chambers, and an outlet-neck, 0, comniunicating with the fluid-chamber f near its bottom, said fluid-chamber being adapted to receive through said neck 0, or otherwise, a supply of cleansing-fluid, and said necks t and o to be connected, respectively, with a *aten pipe, \V, and a liquid-conducting pipe or system of pipes, L, Fig. 1. Preferably, said partitioned vessel is aportable can, made of asuitable sheet metaL-such as tinned copper-and is connected with the water-pipe and liquidconducting pipes, as aforesaid, by hose A B, coupled at their inner ends to said necks i and 0, and adapted to be temporarily coupled, respectively, to a water-faucet, a, and the liquid-drawing faucet b, as represented, for c.\',- ample, in Fig. 1..

In the form represented by Fig. 1, the vessel C may be rectangular in cross -section. The partition separating the chambers w and f is horizontal. The connection 00 between them is in the form of a tube, and said neck 0, being adapted at once to receive the nozzle of a filling-funnel, ff, and to serve as the outlet of the vessel, is provided with an internal tube, 2, extending downward to the bottom of the fluid-chamber, and removable when the hose B is detached, so that the water remaining in the tluid-chamberat the end of the pipecleaning operation, as hereinafter set forth, may be readily emptied therefrom.

The hose A B, Fig. l, are each provided at their inner ends with screw-couplings s, with which the necks z'and 0 of said vessel 0 are adapted to couple, and at their outer ends with terminal couplings t, adapted to couple with the smooth nozzles of the faucets a I) more securely than the hose ends would. One of these terminal couplings is shown in detail in Figs. 2 and 3. It will be seen that each has within asuitably-recessed main casting a screw-plug, to expand and lock the hose end within it, and at the larger outer end an annular packing, 1), of soft rubber approximately of n shape in cross-section, within which the water or liquid within the hose will exert its pressure so as to tighten the packing around the nozzle, and thus prevent the escape of the coupling from the latter under the back-pressure incident to the pipecleaning operation, as well as to expand the packing against the walls of the couplingchamber, so as to precludeleakage around the packing without the aid of a screw-cap. The said connection zbetween the chambers 10 and f of said vessel 0 is, moreover, provided with a check-valve, v, to prevent the escape of cleansing-fluid from said chamberf into said chamber 20. A weighted valve is shown. Its form is immaterial.

The cleaning-vessels C C 0, illustrating modifications of the same invention, have vertical partitions to separate their chambers w f, and are designed to be round or oval in cross-section, as illustrated by full and dotted lines in Fig. 7. Said vessel O has all the parts of said vessel 0, save that they are of different forms or construction. Its inlet-neck i is adapted to have the inner end of a waterhose, A, stretched over it, as represented in Fig. 4. Said connection :0 is a simple hole. Its valve '21 is composed of a floating ball with in a suitable housing, to illustrate the employment of any preferred form of self-closing valve. Its outlet-tube z is fixed, as both chambers can be readily emptied of water remaining therein after the hose are detached through said hole 00 and neck 1'. Its fillingfunnel ff is fixedly attached to the outletneck 0, and the latter is adapted to coach with an elastic hollow plug, h, attached to the inner end of the outlet-hose B, as a sub stitute for its screw-coupling aforesaid. Said vessel 0", Fig. 5, has differently-located inlet and outlet necks, 0, both of the same form as said inlet-neck z, Fig. 4, the outlet neck being so located as to dispense with said outlet-tube z, and its filling-funnel f f is at tached to a distinct neck, a, and provided with a screw-plug, e, to close it during the pipe-cleaning operation. In common with said vessel 0, said vessel C has no valve. In this case a measured quantity of the cleansing-fiuid would be introduced, instead ofpouring until the fluid appears in the funnel. Said vessel G, Figs. 6 and 7, illustrates the further omission of the base-rim 1', Figs. 1, 4, and 5, which is unessential, but on the vessels C and C may serve to protect counters and the like when hot cleansing-fluids are used. Said vessel 0 has inlet and outlet necks i 0, adapted to coact with screw-couplings s, Fig. 1, said neck 0 being provided with a fixed outlet-tube, z, and adapted to admit the nozzle of a detached filling-funnel, ff, Fig. 1, or the like, when the fluid-chamber is to be filled.

The pipe-cleaning operation (illustrated by Fig. 1) is as follows: The fluid-chamber f having been filled with a suitable cleansing-fiuid a hot solution of carbonate of soda, for exampleby means of the filling-funnel f f, inserted through the uncovered outletneck 0, the outlet-tube z is then inserted, and the screwcoupling 8 of the hose B applied to said outletneck, and the other connections of this hose and the water-hoseA having been previously made, as aforesaid, the faucets a b are opened. Water now flows from said faucet a, through the hose A and inlet-neck i, into the chamberw, gradually compressing and displacing the air therein, which in turn flows through the connection :12, lifting the valve 1;, and acts upon the surface of the cleansing-fluid within said chamber f. The cleansing-fluid is thus forcibly ejected through the outlet-tube z and outlet neck o and hose B into the liquiddrawing faucet b and liquid-conducting pipe or system of pipes L, so as to act within the former as well as the latter. Said pipe or pipes L being coupled, by a faucet, 0, or otherwise, to an empty barrel or other receptacle, It, the cleansing-fluid, with the impurities detached by it and carried therewith, flows into this receptacle, and when this has all been blown out of the pipes it is followed by the a air, and that by pure water from said faucet a, flowing through said hose A, neck 1, chamher in, connection as, chamber f, tube 2, neck 0, and hose B into and through said faucet b and pipe or pipes L, until they are thoroughly rinsed out. If the receptacle R be a barrel, as in the illustration, it is now detached to be carted off with its contents, and a full barrel takes its place, the cleaning apparatus having meanwhile been detached and emptied of the water remaining therein, as aforesaid, and

stowed away until again needed.

Having thus described my said improvement in pipe-cleaning apparatus, I claim as my invention and desire to patent under this specification l. A pipe-cleaner having a chamber for water and air, and a chamber for cleansingfluid, with a connection between the top of 'the former and the top of the latter, and

adapted to be connected at will with a waterpipe and a liquid-conducting pipe for cleaning the latter by forcing a suitable cleansingfluid therethrough by compressed air followed by the air-compressing water, substantially as herein set forth.

2. The combination, in a pipe-cleaning apparatus, of a portable vessel having a chamber forwater and air and a chamber for cleansing-fluid, with a connection between the two, an inlet-neck communicating with the chamber first named, and an outlet-neck communichambers, the combination with the latter of a self-closing valve, for preventing the escape of the eleansingfluid into said chamber for water and air in the filling operation, substantially as herein specified.

eating with said flnid-chamher,- and a pair of hose attached to said necks, and adapted at their outer ends to be applied, respectively, to the nozzle of an ordinary waterfaueet and 5 that of the liquid-drawing faucet, substantially as herein specified, for the purpose set WILLIAM THOMAS forth.

3. In a pipe-cleaning apparatus having a Witnesses:

JAY ()DELL,

G120. ENGEL.

chamber for water and air, a chamber for 10 cleansing-fluid, and aeonneetion between said 

